It lives on the orchards early in the morning. The carp’s journey to the Christmas table has begun

“We usually start at half past five in the morning and finish around five in the afternoon, there are usually about fifteen of us here. This is to ensure a smooth distribution of fish, because the sale will increase within three days,” explains Petr Kulhánek, head of fisheries at Kinský Žďár.

It is one of the largest fisheries in the Highlands, managing approximately 700 hectares of ponds, most of them in the Žďár region.

Regardless of which day of the week Christmas falls on, the sale of the boxes starts on December 21st and ends on December 23rd every year. “Traders come to buy the bags. And our company itself sells fish at four locations, including its own department store, where there is also the possibility of processing the fish,” says Kulhánek.

According to him, it is difficult to estimate the biggest spike in pre-Christmas fritters. “It depends on what day Christmas falls on, what time people go to work and the like. Now, on Monday, we will deliver to the companies that take carp for their employees,” the head of the fishermen mentions.

This year’s Christmas fish is mainly from Veselské rybník, caught in mid-November. “Since then, the fish has been in cages, it no longer takes food here, so it will starve. It tastes best at Christmas,” smiles Kulhánek, who has worked in the industry for 43 years.

As needed, the fishermen release the fish from the bag into the supply channel, through which they reach the basement of the fish farm. “That is the central wording, or wording. It is a room where you can drive the fish from each box. It greatly facilitates our work, because it has a huge advantage, because we are able to load a relatively large amount of fish there without much effort. Three people are enough to operate it,” describes Petr Kulhánek.

They weigh the fish there and, thanks to mechanization, conveniently load it onto the car. The central speech has been operating here since 1975. “At that time it was the second such facility in the republic. It is mostly used only for Christmas,” adds the fisherman.

Additional helpers are needed directly in the box during hauling or when manually loading fish into transport boxes with oxygen for smaller cars.

According to Židár fishermen, there is a clear trend that people have their fish processed as much as possible, on the contrary, fishermen have long-term evidence that people most often want roughly three-kilogram carp. “But, for example, Poles prefer fish that is only one and a half to two and a half kilos,” compares Kulhánek.

However, before Christmas, it is not only the scaly ones that disappear from the orchards, the demand for other species is growing. “Younger people increasingly prefer grass carp, pike or zander. But in my opinion, carp still belongs to Christmas,” Kulhánek says, not allowing the fish, which has been boasting the Žďárský carp trademark for several years.

It melts over its muscles, because it takes four years to grow to market size, i.e. one year longer than carp in warmer regions.

But there are also connoisseurs who go to fish tanks for completely different fish. “We’re taking marena for smoking, it’s a papánichko. Unfortunately, the goods are in short supply,” says a pair of men in the office, who are definitely not here for the first time. Whitefish is very popular among gourmets, but due to persistent cormorants, fisheries can only produce a fraction of what it was years ago.

The head of the fishermen shakes his head at the decision of some chains to ban the sale of live fish in their stores. “It’s just a move by the chains to get rid of the competition, to sell already processed fish to customers and attract them to buy something else. Anyone who wants quality fish will buy it alive and fresh,” Kulhánek is clear.

At the end of the autumn catches, Petr Kulhánek talked about the fact that the price of Christmas carp will remain the same as last year, i.e. 110 crowns, but in the end he surprised the customers. “We went down ten crowns. There are quite a lot of fish this year, we left the people’s price,” he explains.

He talks about the Christmas sale as a service to people and an effort to preserve traditions. “Christmas sales only make up about fifteen percent of the total business,” surprises the head of the fishery. Other periods are decisive – for example, when pond owners buy stock in the spring and when sports grounds are stocked after catches.